pansophist:


There is racial tension in the west, but of course football, advertisements and media makes it seems like we now live a world where everyone is equal. It's a lie.

Black and white people live in a different reality, and as someone that have dated a white lady, there are things she will never understand no matter how you try. For example, living in a white man's land has made blacks to be conscious of themselves in a way whites are not.

For example, everytime I'm denied a job, an opportunity, a date, or landlord refuse to rent me a house, there is always that voice in my head that tells me it's because of my skin colour.

WEB du Bois, the afro-American sociologist termed it as "double consciousness". Every minorities feel it, but I've been asked by white people to explain it to them. It's like a fish that never experienced hot water, and no matter how you explain, the fish will never understand that the water it lives in, is also used to cook it, and it's his hell.

For example, I'm a European citizen, but even if the constitution considers me equal, there are some post I won't apply for, because I know the answer is no. For example contesting to be the prime minister.

Also, if you're a black man with a white lady, she better be freaking hot. Or else people will think you're with her for papers. And also that she is with you because you have a PhD (pretty huge deeek). Its more but I'll pause here.

That's a pretty valid point. Those who feel the racial tension knows it exists. Those who don't can never imagine it. I always thought it was enough to just give a 100% each time and you'll get what you want. However, it's just impossible to deny that there is systemic racism, whereby one's color just immediately creates ideas in other people's heads that shouldn't be there. Sometimes I feel like it's their past experiences that have conditioned them to draw immediate conclusions from the color white people see. Perhaps, they have once been assaulted by a black person? Even Liam Neeson couldn't hide his own bias informed by an attack on a female friend by a black person. Nevertheless, an argument can be made that this goes both ways. Black folks also inform some of their interactions with white people squarely based on the color they see. It's unfortunate what the world has come to where color becomes a strongly dividing line. I have a theory which I think will resolve the color problem the world faces. I think increasingly interracial marriages could eventually make the world one color over several centuries so that color never becomes a defining feature anymore.

I think her original naivete is forgivable. She was a boisterous 14-year-old who only knew America from the shows she saw on TV. She wanted to live like Angelina Jolie because Hollywood was her only image of America. She probably is not alone. There are also tons of kids today in Nigeria who still have misshapen images of America; kids who think the streets of this wonderful country is tiled with gold. Kids be kids. One could legitimately forgive this error in thinking coming from a naive teenager. But if she thought she would have had it any better in Nigeria, she certainly isn't looking at all sides of the coin. Her parents' business in Nigeria was obviously failing and they would have had a lot more poverty to contend with while navigating that. She needs to outgrow her naivete.

I saw some hope at the end of her interview and that's inspiring. She needs to cease being that naïve teenager who took it upon herself to create an imaginary America from TV images. No country gives you opportunities on a platter, except maybe the United Arab Emirates or any other oil-rich gulf country. If you are black and from Nigeria, you probably have more work to do to convince the world that you can make something of yourself. That's true both in Nigeria and in America. Unlike her however, there are millions of other children who do not have an American opportunity and who will never make something for themselves. That much is certain. Unlike them, she has a rare opportunity, to go to some of the best colleges in the world, to achieve a dream based squarely on merit like, for example, the first black female supreme court justice, Ketanji Jackson. She could either fight for that in a country where it is possible or she could continue complaining or, alternatively, return to Nigeria and have to deal with a mediocre and intensely corrupt society where her dreams may remain ever unachievable. It's her choice.

I still don't quite understand what the aim of his scheming is, if it is indeed true that he intends to run. And if he isn't, what's stopping coming out to debunk all the rumors? Openness and transparency don't appear to be the most prominent traits of the Nigerian politician.